


Langoud Anthologies

by Corona_Blaze



Category: The Amalgam Universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 21:53:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6924853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corona_Blaze/pseuds/Corona_Blaze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A long string of short stories set on board the GDF-S Langoud.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Langoud Anthologies

“First day on a new position and I’m already confused.” Major Anthony Hicks wasn’t one to complain, barring that he was dealing with something sensible. A gigantic battleship submarine shaped like some kind of predatory whale, however? That was already pushing what he considered normal, and he’d had to keep track of Zilla for much of his past duties.

“I can assure you, Major. It will only get worse.” Marshall Pentecost’s casualness did little to aussage Hicks’ confusion and growing concern.

“So… these guys, what’s their issue? You said it yourself, I’m the fifth guy you tried as a liaison. Why’d everyone else run off?”

“Simply put? There’s a reason why they’re considered a Double Black research team.  Serizawa considers their ship to be a floating insane asylum. And frankly, he’s not far off. But that’s the point. They’re geniuses, and they think in ways other scientists don’t. They react to the impossible as if it was a challenge, not as a barrier. And their thoughts on the supernatural are to study it closely, rather than dismiss it outright as the rest of the scientific community does.”

“So basically a literal boatload of mad scientists?”

“Yes.”

“Goody. An army of Tatopouloses.”

“Major, you have no idea how big of an understatement that is.” Stacker sighed and smiled. “Just remember this. They mean well, and they’re a friendly lot when you get to know them well enough.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Marshall.” Hicks gave a swift salute and hopped off of the chopper, stepping down to the upper deck of the massive warship. A look around revealed a door that popped up from the floor. “Oh well. Once more, into the breech.” With a cautious tread, Hicks stepped into the doorway only for it to shut behind him. The room seemed to level out, descending slightly into the ship and forming a relatively small room.

“Hi there!” A chipper, youthful voice spoke, catching the Major off guard. “Welcome to the Langoud! My name’s Scylla, and I’ll be your guide for the evening!” A mass of lights flooded from several beams in front of Hicks, the tiny motes of light forming the image of what looked like a young, green and black colored girl.

“Uh… huh.” A hologram serving as the greeter for a new arrival. That was certainly strange. Anthony shook his head, remembering that these guys were oddballs even by GDF standards. “Well, nice to meet you Miss Scylla. My name’s Anthony Hicks, I’m the new military liaison from the GDF.”

“Well then!” Scylla giggled, tapping the wall with her foot, causing the room, now revealed to be an elevator, to descend deeper into the ship. “Welcome aboard, Major! Lemme introduce you to granny and the boss!”

“Wait, how’d you know I was a major?”

“‘The Sacred Grotto’. Black Shark Guild. ‘Da Big Boss Dude’ as treasurer. Need I go on?”

Hicks tried to ignore the bead of sweat rolling down the side of his head. “... Nope.”

“Good. And don’t tell dad, he doesn't know I play it.”

“Will do. Wait, you’re human? I thought you were just a greeter program or something.”

Scylla just laughed. “Sweetheart, we got a LOT to teach you.” The Major responded with a questioning head tilt, breaking it off as the elevator finally came to a stop. The holographic girl tapped the wall with a knuckle, causing it to open, revealing what looked to be the command center of the ship. Two women were watching out through large windows into what looked like some kind of mech bay below. One was shorter with dark skin and pale hair, the other significantly larger and dressed in purple robes and was completely white of skin from head to toe.

“Oh grammie! Boss! We got fresh meat on deck!”

“Oh finally, I was starting to get tired of snails every day!” The woman, the larger of the duo, turned around, purple eyes meeting with the Major’s own gaze, her expression shifting from hungry to embarrassed, “Oh… oh that kind. Sorry.”  She coughs and says, “Welcome aboard! You must be Major Hicks. Pentecost has told us quite a bit about you.”

“Wait, Hicks!?”  The smaller woman turned around in shock and Hicks recognized her immediately.

“Joanne?” He groaned, smacking his own face. “Oh why am I not surprised that you’re here?”

“Oh no, we’re not starting with THAT again!”

“What are you two talking about?” The larger, robe-clad woman asked.

“We used to date.” The pair responded, ending their impending argument with an annoyed glance, but went back to at least trying to be cordial.

“Well… Since you already know our democratically elected leader I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Tori Wylder.  I’m the resident magic specialist, heading any and all research into mana powered artifacts and the ‘supernatural’. Also I handle most of the paperwork.”

“Well, nice to meet you, Miss Wylder.” Hicks shook her hand gently, calming down rather fast now that he had something other than  _ her _ to focus on. “I had been told you guys take the supernatural a bit more serious than most. Didn’t know you had a specialist.”

“She’s more of our head magic researcher, really. She’s my second in command.”  Joanne smiled, wrapping an arm around Tori’s hips. “Keyword, MINE.”  Tori let out a giggle as the smaller doctor began hugging her possessively.

“Oh, JoJo, stop being silly! C’mon, let's introduce the kids and we can show the Major around, ok?”  Patting the doctor on the head, she managed to pry the smaller woman off gingerly, nodding to Scylla, whom promptly vanished into particles of light.

“OK, before we go who - or what - was she?” Hicks nodded back to where Scylla was.

“Ah. That’s a bit complicated,” Tori responded. “She’s technically my granddaughter and Joanne’s. Our sons are her parents.” She shrugged. “it’s an odd scenario.”

“OK. That’s about as good an answer as I’ll be able to get at this point, isn’t it?”

“For now, yes,” Joanne said. “A lot of us have been working on some sensitive experiments, and the last guy we had as a liaison apparently felt it was morally wrong to let us do our jobs. He kept disrupting our experiments and nearly got himself killed when he interrupted a test of Tori’s pyromancy abilities.”

Hicks lifted an eyebrow. “I remember hearing about that in the briefing papers. ‘The Reverend’ they called him. Heard he got discharged because of third degree burns he got… everywhere.”

“He should thank his God that he wasn’t burned to ashes.” Tori responded, clearly annoyed at the memories. “We took every feasible precaution for everything that could have gone wrong. Except for the possibility of that moron leaping right up into my face and trying to blast me with a fire extinguisher while I had a fireball hot enough to qualify as a miniature SUN in my hands!”

“Don’t worry yourself too much ma’am. I can promise I won’t do anything quite that dumb.” Hicks said crisply. He didn’t quite believe that was the whole of what had happened, but he knew that Reverend wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed as well. Rule number one for anybody visiting a science lab: do not interrupt the experiments. Causing trouble for the geek squad always tends to end in lots of pain. Hicks had learned that lesson well enough during his time with the Heatseekers. And with these guys? When even Stacker Pentecost says that they are nuts, best be extra cautious.

“Well, that’s good to know.” Tori nodded towards the door. “Shall we head to the experiment bay before something-” A sudden, loud crash came from down below, followed by several indistinct screams and yells. “...breaks.”

“Aaand here we go again.” Joanne opened a service door and began rushing down the stairs, followed close behind by Tori and Hicks. They descended several flights rapidly, continued yells coming from lower down. Finally Joanne turned off onto a landing and paused at the door, entering a code on a panel and pulling open the door before running off. Tori caught the door just before it closed and held it open for Hicks, wearing a hesitant and nervous smile.

“What the hell?” was Hicks’ only response upon seeing the massive bay that lay on the other side. The place was big enough for a Jaeger and then some, filled with a myriad of scientists in their lab coats, oddballs in dark robes, and definitely-not-human being all wandering around. It took a moment of searching for Hicks to locate Joanne, who was striding towards a huge, burly man hoisting up what looked to have once been some kind of vice-like arm, now sliced clean in half.

“Comrade Johnson!” The man shouted in a faint Russian accent. “What was the PSI when the thread broke?”

“Looks to be about fifty thousand tons, Smirnoff!” The other man, whose name tag read Samuel Johnson, was situated at a computer, examining the numbers coming off. Doctor Johannes Smirnoff set the broken machine down, retrieving his notes and half of a sample of some kind of thin thread.

‘What the HELL happened here!?” Hicks shouted, gathering the large hangar’s attention. He took a better look and realized that there was black and yellow caution tape giving the vice and another one similarly damaged a wide berth, and the only one inside was the burly russian, whom apparently was re-gathering samples.

“You must be new liaison!” The big man said, standing easily a head and a half taller than Hicks. “I am Doctor Johannes Smirnoff, neurosurgeon. And you?”

“Er, Major Hicks.”

“Major Hicks,” Tori said upon catching up. “Doctor Smirnoff is one of the team’s founding members. Over there is Samuel Johnson, Joanne’s son.  And that gentleman with the six-armed woman is Doctor Ludvig Maxis.”

“Maxis?” Hicks quirked a brow, “Ain’t he the nutter who claimed he made zombies over in Germany?”

“They were not ‘zombies’, zhweinhun!” A bald man of middling height with piercing dark eyes glared at them from a workstation several stations away. His large white beard fluttered madly as he said, “They were already living human clones that deteriorated rapidly once they left their growing tubes. The fact that they acted rabid and homicidal was due to a flaw in the brain chemistry, not out of desire to eat human flesh.”

“If they walk like zombies, moan like zombies, and die like zombies…” Samuel shook his head and shrugged as he walked over to Hicks. “Don’t mind Maxis over there. He just takes the whole ‘zombie’ thing personally. People never let him live it down, so he really gets uppity when anyone mentions it.”

“People don’t let any of us live down a lot of things we’ve done,” the six-armed woman said. “Even things we had no control over.” She stepped forward and bowed. “Alloh.  My name is Kumiko Wylder. And you are?”

“Major Anthony Hicks, ma’am.” The Major nodded and offered a hand, trying to ignore the fact that the returned hands felt slightly sticky as they shook his. “So what exactly was the source of all that noise? Did something break?”

Sam nodded and motioned to the roped off area. “We were testing a new tensile material developed by Kumi here, trying to see what its breaking strength was. Instead, we found out the breaking point of our testing equipment.” He smiled and pushed his glasses up by the bridge. “Just as I predicted I might add.”

“‘Developed’ isn’t the word I’d use,” Kumiko said. “And the thread  _ did _ break but… Well-”

“Little thread snap with enough force to slice clean through steel!” Johannes said, hoisting up one of the shredded machines, showing perfectly smooth slice lines going right through the metal.

“And with a failure pressure of a staggering fifty kilotons,” Samuel added, “the potential uses of which are enormous. And that’s before we factor in the potential use as a cutting implement at high-enough pressure.”

“Right off the bat I can see a potential new soft body armor material.” Hicks added.

“Exactly!” Sam smiled and turned to his mother, who was still goggling at the destroyed equipment. “I like this guy, he’s sharp. Who is he?”

“I’m your new military liaison with the GDF,” Hicks answered.

“Wow. Finally they send us someone with a BRAIN!”

“Yes, shocking, not all of us soldiers are morons.” Hicks shook his head. “Actually, most of us aren’t. I’m just so used to weirdness from working with HEAT that it doesn’t freak me out as much.”

“Buddy, trust me when I say this. You ain’t seen nothing yet. I’m guessing mom and miss Wylder are gonna introduce you to my sis and our head engineer, right?” Sam chuckled. “Just wait ‘till you meet those two. I’ll get the straightjacket ready.”

Joanne frowned. “Oh come on, son. They’re not  _ that _ bad.”

Sam just lifted an eyebrow and folded his arms over his chest. “Out of everyone on this team, there is nobody who closer fits the mad scientist role than Theo, and you well know it Mom. Hicks, let me give you a piece of advice. You may be used to weird when it comes to science, but when you meet Theo and my sister, be prepared for a whole different kind of strange. The kind of ludicrous that giggling highschool couples would find bizarre. You have been warned.”

“Oh please,” Tori added, “You act as if two lovers enjoying some peace and quiet is a bad thing.”

“When one of them is a notorious troublemaker like Theo and the other is a genetically engineered super soldier? One who very much happens to be her mother’s daughter? Yes, it can be a  _ very _ bad thing. They’re just lucky I’m around to keep them from going overboard. And yes, I mean that literally.”

“That happened ONCE!” Joanne shouted.

“Once is enough, mom!” Sam snapped back. “Just… Hicks? Trust me. I can almost guarantee you you’ll wind up stumbling into something private. And more than likely will not give a damn that you’re there. So you have been warned.”

“Um… thanks?” Hicks took a deep breath and turned to the two women whom were, apparently, the commanding officers of the ship. “So… shall we risk it?”

“Well, you’ll have to meet them eventually. Might as well get the awkwardness done now instead of later.” Tori sighed, waving Hicks to follow her, Joanne tagging along behind him. They left the experiment bay through another door, this one a massive blast door. “This hall leads down to the barracks. Two to a room is the tradition and every room has at least one person, so you’ll have to share.” She walks down the hall and leads Hicks to a sliding door with a sock hanging from the handle.  

“I already know what that means.” Hicks said, cutting off the two women about to explain the significance of the sock. “Let’s… let’s knock first.” Hicks approached the door and heard a muffled cry. He looked back at the two ladies with him, whom also got closer. 

Hicks leaned against the door to hear what was going on within, only to catch a man’s voice saying “I can’t hold it much longer!”, and a woman’s gasping moans. Rapid breaths, panicked shouts, and finally Hicks had heard enough. He taps the door three times in hopes of stopping things before they could escalate any further. Instead of hushed whispers like he expected he got a prompt, if annoyed answer.

“IT’S UNLOCKED, DAMMIT!” The shout came from a woman. A very large woman if Hicks had to judge from the volume. So with a tap on the handle, the door swung open, revealing the true horror within.

“You’re playing Twister and didn’t invite us!?” Tori shouted, pouting at the sight of her son, struggling to hold himself up under the weight of his gargantuan lover. The pale skinned, dark-haired young man was short by anyone’s standards and looked to be scrawny to boot. Hicks assumed this to be Theo. Immediately Hicks thought ‘stunted growth’ at the guy’s small frame but the possibility that he was just plain young wasn’t dismissed. 

His ‘lover’, apparently Tytanna, was a shocking contrast. Where Theo was short and scrawny with lean muscle, Tytanna was, pardon the pun, Titanic in every way. Tall, with a heavy muscular build and a considerable layer of fat, the blond-haired humanoid lizard-thing would have, if he ignored the cat-like muzzle or the red and gold scales...or the tail, could easily qualify as ‘drop dead gorgeous’. It was hard to ignore the non-human features though, and the Army man wondered how anyone could. Then again, far be it from Hicks to judge one’s romantic preferences. Still, something felt off to him. Why use the universal symbol of ‘do not disturb, sex occurring’ for a game of twister? Then he realised after a closer look at Theo...

“Why’re you naked?”

The young lad rolled his eyes and snarked, “Take a guess.”

“Ooookaaaayyyy.” Hicks simply closed the door and stepped back, willing the images to leave his mind for the dark ‘ignore til the end of time’ spaces. “This is officially the strangest job I’ve ever been on.”

“Welcome to the Langoud, Major Hicks.” Tori said.

“You’ll fit riiiight in, Tony.” Joanne smirked.


End file.
